


Lightning

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Dimension Travel, Draco is a history buff, Harry is a Dragon, Harry is a Little Shit, the corps has no idea what to do with him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-06-10 01:56:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6933298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco and Harry have an accident in the Department of Mysteries while on the run and end up in another world entirely. And one of them is distinctly more reptilian than they remember being.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t own anything belonging to the Harry Potter or Temeraire series, those rights go to their respective authors and whoever else might have an actual legal claim to them. I am not making any money from this, ect., ect.

So I got a little bored with the story I was working on before (Firelight, for those of you who care) and decided to try something different. I’ll probably come back to Firelight at some point, but for now… _dragons_.

Summary: Draco and Harry have an accident in the Department of Mysteries while on the run and end up in another world entirely. And one of them is distinctly more reptilian than they remember being.

Disclaimer for the whole his because it’s incredible annoying to type: I don’t own anything belonging to the Harry Potter or Temeraire series, those rights go to their respective authors and whoever else might have an actual legal claim to them. I am not making any money from this, ect., ect.

 

They had thought they were safe. Thought that they had destroyed all of the horcruxes. Thought that the war was over and they could move on with their lives. They picked up the pieces of their shattered world and started to rebuild. Ron and Hermione got married, Harry and Ron enrolled in the Auror Academy, Ginny finished school and started playing for the Harpies. Harry even spoke at the Malfoys’ trials and got Narcissa and Draco pardoned for their actions during the war, not that they had done all that much when compared to some of the other Death Eaters.

Everything went well for a few years, and then, like everything else in Harry’s life, it all went to shit.

Ron was fired from the aurors for using unnecessary force on a suspect, losing Harry a partner; and when he was the principle witness at Ron’s disciplinary hearing, a friend as well. Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys had taken Ron’s side and left him as well. He had thought that Ginny, at least, would stay with him, but that thought died when he caught her in bed with one of the Harpies’ couches. At least then he understood why their relationship had been rocky for months.

It didn’t help when Harry was assigned Draco Malfoy as his replacement partner, the feud between the two families making it impossible for the Weasleys to look passed his actions.

Even then, things hadn’t been too bad. After a few months Harry was able to make friends with some of his other coworkers who he had never really interacted with before; Hermione and the Weasleys taking up all of his time and preventing him from making friends outside of their group. He even found that he actually got along with his new partner, making Harry think that he truly did make a mistake on that first train ride. Draco and he had even shared a flat after Ginny kicked him out of their shared apartment and Harry refusing to spend more time than was necessary at No. 12.

And then Voldemort came back.

People panicked, there was a mass exodus from the country, including many of the Auror force. Few remained who were willing to fight against the Dark Lord once more, most figuring that if he could return from the dead not once, but _twice_ , then he was truly unstoppable.

Draco and Harry had stayed. They fought, And, along with the Ministry, they lost. The government fell within months, with only a few pockets of resistance remaining. The British Wizarding community was tired, they didn’t have the strength to fight another war so soon after the last two, and so the majority of them simply gave up.

The two partners were heavily targeted by the returned madman, Harry because he was _Harry Potter_ , and Draco for turning traitor. Narcissa, Andromeda Tonks, and Harry’s godson, Teddy were all killed in those months. They were some of the first to die, before anyone really knew what was happening, their remains being left in the Atrium at the Ministry had marked the beginning of the Third War.

All of which lead back to the present moment, Harry and Draco running through what was left of the Department of Mysteries after being ambushed on a mission to retrieve some potentially useful information from the files.

Spell fire ricocheted off the walls around them as they dived through yet another doorway, slamming the door behind them and throwing up as many locking spells as they could while running.

“Dammit!” Draco gasped as they skidded around a corned only to see more Death Eaters in front of them and changed direction again. “How did they find us!”

“Less talking,” Harry grabbed his partner and hauled him out of the way of another curse. “-more running!” They tumbled through an archway into another room, this time the door slammed shut of its own accord, abruptly silencing the yells of the Death Eaters outside.

“What was that?” Draco asked while he looked for the exit. Except… there wasn’t one. “Shit. This room only has one door.”

“What?” Harry saw that he was right and started cursing along with his friend. “Bloody buggering fuck, now what do we do?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Draco demanded.

“You’re always the one with the plan aren’t you?”

“Only because you can’t be bothered to use what little intelligence you have for anything other than dodging curses! _Someone_ has to do the thinking around here- what is that this doing!” In the center of the room was a stone pedestal. It was, in fact, the _only_ thing in the room. On top of this pedestal was a cushion holding what looked like a very large egg.

“That’s a dragon egg.” Harry said. He recognized the shape from when Norbert was hatched, though this one was considerably larger than the one Hagrid had gotten his hands on. Where Norbert’s egg had been only slightly larger than that of an ostrich, this one was at least three feet tall and proportionally round. Instead of the pale cream color that Harry remembered, this egg was a deep midnight blue color, interspersed with dark grey splotches and silvery striations. “That is going to one large dragon.”

“Oh, well, that’s great. Especially since I’m pretty sure the damn thing is _hatching_.” Indeed, the egg was starting to shift slightly from side to side on its cushion.             Unnoticed by the two aurors the first drops of blood from their many cuts and curse wounds had made their was to the floor. As more blood followed, the thick liquid began to fill in shallow groves carved into the floor. Soon the outlines of a few runes could be seen standing out from the previously unremarkable floor. Runes that were activated by the blood and began to siphon more and more blood into the ritual circle that the two men had missed when they ran into the room.

They still didn’t notice at first until the magic of the ritual circle started to put suction on their wounds to pull more blood into the runes. They glanced downward when they felt the pull only to see the steadily spreading design on the floor.

“What the-?” Harry exclaimed, he tried to pull away and step out of the circle but found that he was stuck to the ground, unable to move his feet. “What’s happening?”

“How am I supposed to know? Most of the people who worked here didn’t even know what they were doing half the time, and you expect me to understand what goes on in their heads?” Draco was in a similar state to Harry, fussed to the floor and rapidly losing blood. Their struggles grew weaker as their blood loss grew more severe, draining them of the energy to move.

If they had been able to spare any attention from their struggle they would have noticed that even as they grew weaker the movement of the egg on the pedestal grew stronger. Eventually all they could do was lay on the floor gasping as they lost the strength to stand.

Harry could feel his life draining away with every drop of blood that left him. It was a slow death, very different than the one he had suffered at the hands of Voldemort. Harry would almost say that he preferred the previous one, if not for the fact that he wouldn’t give the homicidal maniac the satisfaction of killing him directly. His body felt cold, the edges of his wounds were like ice, and his vision was beginning to turn grey at the edges. He was fading away, about to slip into a sleep that he would never wake up from.

The last thing he saw as his eyes drifted closed for the final time, was a great hairline crack spider-webbing its way across the surface of the egg.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t own anything belonging to the Harry Potter or Temeraire series, those rights go to their respective authors and whoever else might have an actual legal claim to them. I am not making any money from this, etc., etc.

A crack appeared on the surface of the egg, thin and spidery and spreading across the shell. The rocking paused for a moment as the creature inside rested, gathering itself to finally break out of the egg which had housed it for untold years.

Small paws, each digit tipped with inch long razor sharp talons, tapped at the faint outline of light where the cracks lay. Satisfied with its previous work the small creature drew its head back as far as it could in the cramped egg space and slammed it forward at the weakened area. A small protuberance at the end of the creature’s muzzle, the egg tooth which had been employed to rupture the egg sack, connected to the weakened area and popped out a small triangular piece of shell. He rested, taking the opportunity to breath in the fresh air coming in through the newly made opening. It smelled… damp, and slightly musty, as if the wasn’t a lot of airflow through the area. There was also a distinct overlay of salt in the air, though he wasn’t sure how he knew that. There was something, at the back of his mind, a memory, maybe? Something he had forgotten.

Outside his egg he could hear men talking, their voices less muffled than he could remember before.

“Look! You can see a bit through the shell.”

“What color is it? Doc couldn’t tell what breed it was before, mayhap we’ll be able to tell now that it’s out of the shell.”

“Dunno’, looks black to me. What breeds have black colors?”          

“None of ours I don’t think. Couple of the Frogs’ have black hides.”

“Cor, what if we found one of their fire breathers? Aren’t they black?”

“Nah, Doc would have been able to tell if it were one of them.”

“Still any dragon’s gonna’ be worth a lot of money as a prize, imagine what you could do with all that gold.” Dragon? He twisted his head around as much as possible to peer down at himself, is that what he was?

“Hah! You don’t think any of us will see any of that gold do you? No, Captain will get most of that.”

“Only if someone can harness the beast, Jugson, and watch how you speak about you superiors. Talk like that leads to lashes.”

“Oh, come off it, Lieutenant, you know it’s true. And as for harnessing the beast, well that’s what Thomson is for, right?” A muffled thump followed those words.

“R-right.” This voice was quieter than the rest, and younger as well, and it shook with some emotion. He thought it might be fear, but he wasn’t sure, why would anyone be afraid of him?

Well, it was about time to find out.

He took one last deep breath of air before he pulled his head away from the opening and hooked two claws into the small gap. A tug later and the egg split neatly in half down the middle.

* * *

 

Harry tumbled out of the egg in a wet heap. He lay there, blinking, in a mess of broken shell and slime while he tried to regain his bearings.

After a moment he tried to struggle to his feet but ended up not being able to balance and falling back down to his… feet. All four of them. Because he was a dragon now. Harry stared down at the four scaled appendages, they seemed to be formed like those of a cat, with the forelegs having a greater range of motion than the back. Dark blue scales covered him, shading to a dark gray on the insides of his legs and what he could see of his chest and stomach. All of his feet had five toes that ended in deadly looking, curved talons. The front pair were more flexible, at least enough that he wound be able to grasp things with them even though the ‘thumb’ wasn’t fully opposable.

Twisting his head around on his elongated neck let him see the rest of his body. The wings sprouting from his back caught his attention first, with some concentration he was able to work out how to move the strange appendage and haltingly spread them out. A small glob of slime dripped from one of them down to the floor and he frowned in distaste. Except it wasn’t really a frown as the muscles of his face no longer moved that way. With a mental grimace he turned his attention back to his wings.

The ribs of his wings were all the same dark blue as the rest of him, shading into the dark grey on the membrane between them. Silver spots and splotches formed a pattern on the edges. He awkwardly attempted to fold the wings back out of the way and eventually managed it.

He was about to bring the tail he could feel behind him around so that he could get a look at it when the humans that he had been ignoring since he… hatched, interrupted.

“Get to it Thomson.” Harry’s head snapped around at the words and saw a large, burly, man shove a teenager in his direction.

“H-hello.” The boy stuttered, he couldn’t be more than fifteen and was clearly terrified. He was holding a contraption made of metal and leather straps, though it shook from his trembling hands. “My n-name’s John. J-john Thomson, would you like for me t-to give you a name?”

Harry tilted his head to the side and stared at the boy and the three other men behind him. Three of them were dressed in threadbare and somewhat ragged clothes, though it was difficult to tell in the dim lighting of the room they were in and he couldn’t get a good look at the last one. There was a lantern hanging from one of the low ceiling beams but most of the light came from the two small, round windows on the far wall. He thought he might be on a ship. That would explain the salt smell and the rocking motion he could feel through the floor.

When Harry didn’t reply the boy tried to get his attention again. “Umm, I asked if you wanted me to name you? I-if you do they I can put this h-harness on you and I can bring you something to e-eat.”

“Why would I want you to name me?” Harry asked. “I already have a name.” The men obviously weren’t expecting that and they stared at him in shock. The boy glanced back at the men behind him, looking for direction, but they merely waved for him to continue.

“W-well then, will you tell me what your name is? And then I can p-put this on you and I bring you some food.” He extended the leather thing in Harry’s direction.

“It’s Harry.” He eyed the thing before dismissing it and turning to the men, as they seemed to be the ones in charge, particularly the one at the back. Now that the men had shifted around a bit Harry could see that he was the best dressed of anyone there. He was also the only one wearing a hat, Harry thought he might be the lieutenant who had spoken when Harry was hatching. Strangely, all of the men wore muggle clothing that looked like it belonged in the historical dramas that Draco watched on the telly. “Where’s Draco?”

“Who?” The lieutenant asked.

“Draco Malfoy. Tall bloke, pale, blond, bears a passing resemblance to a ferret?” Harry attempted to roll his eyes and discovered that it was yet another expression he could form with this face. That would be a problem once he found his partner again, as eye rolls were his main coping mechanism for the blonde’s antics.

“I’m afraid that we haven’t encountered anyone of that description.” The man finally replied after a pause.

Harry narrowed his eyes into sits and his tail lashed through the air, thumping against the wall behind him and making Thomson squeak and drop the leather contraption. “You’re lying.” He hissed, his years as an auror had given him a lot of experience spotting when someone was lying to him, and his new eyes could spot them even in this pore light. “Where’s Draco.”

“…We did find a man floating in the wreckage when we hauled your egg out of the water. He’s still alive, though he hasn’t woken up yet. Perhaps, if you let Thomson put a harness on you, we can take you to see him.” The man hedged.

Harry hissed like a kettle and took a few shaky step forward before he got a hang of his new shape. “Or we can forget about the harness, and you can take me to him now.”

“We can’t have a dragon wandering around the ship unharnessed, the men would panic. Try to be reasonable, and then Thomson can bring you something to eat before you go see Mr. Malfoy. You must be hungry after hatching.” The lieutenant tried to persuade him.

“I don’t care.” Harry stated, walking toward the doorway, if they wouldn’t take him to his partner then he’d go find the ponce himself. A gesture from the lieutenant had one of the other men reaching out to close the door. Harry snarled and glared at the man, who shifted nervously but held his ground. He was taller than the others, and quite thin, Harry thought he looked closer to the age of Thompson than the others.

“We can’t let you do that, and if you wish for Mr. Malfoy to stay in good health then you should cooperate with us.” Harry froze, every muscle in his body seizing when he heard the underlying threat. Turning his head to face the lieutenant he growled lowly.

“And if _you_ wish to ‘remain in good health’, _I_ suggest that you not get in my way.” Harry found that his new face _would_ let him grin, and did so, exposing a great many teeth in the process. The two younger men flinched, and even the lieutenant paled. “After all, you don’t seem to have any weapons on you, and like you said: I’ve just hatched, and I am quite hungry.”

The lieutenant made no move to open the door. His hand twitched toward his side though, perhaps he did have a weapon after all. Harry would have thought that they would have been more on guard around a newly hatched dragon. Of course, he had no idea what was actually going on here, so perhaps there was a reason for their laxness.

Thankfully, the lieutenant never got the chance to act before the thin man hurriedly shoved the door back open and jumped to the side and out of Harry’s way.

“Williams!” The lieutenant snapped. “What do you think you’re doing? Close that door immediately.”

“Sorry Lieutenant, but I’m not going to get in his way if’en he’s threatening to be eating folk.” Williams backed away from the door with his hands raised.

“My thanks.” Harry hissed sarcastically and darted out of the room before any of them could stop him.

“Stop him!” The lieutenant cried behind Harry. The small dragon inhaled deeply, searching for any scent that was familiar to him. He wasn’t sure what Draco would smell like to a dragon, but he didn’t think it would hurt to try.

Nothing. For all he knew a dragon’s sense of smell was no better than a human’s. Or Draco had been in the sea too long for him to smell of anything else. A quick glance around showed him that he was in a short hallway with stairs at either end. Thinking that they wouldn’t keep the ship’s doctor in the hold, Harry choose the upward staircase.

He checked each of the doors in the hallway on his way to the stairs, just to be sure that they hadn’t stashed his partner in an of them. A quick scramble later and he was in another hallway similar to the first, though this one had fewer doors than the last. He checked all of those doors as well. Unfortunately, many of the doors were locked or otherwise inaccessible to his draconic ‘hands’. He didn’t stop though, the doctor would probably need to be accessible at any time, it was unlikely that he would keep his door locked. Startled curses flew from some of the rooms he could get into when the occupants objected to being startled by an infantile dragon barging in on them.

He had collected quite a few sailors chasing him by the time he found the right door. None of them managed to catch him though. He was too small and quick for most to get close to, and those few who did were left with slashes and bite marks from where he had fought to escape.

At last, though, he found the right cabin. Spotting his partner laid out on a thin bunk through an open door, Harry changed direction abruptly. Behind him, he heard a thump and an upsurge in the amount curses being thrown around. One of his pursuers had attempted to tackle him, and his sudden change of course had seen the man slamming into the floor. Several of the other sailors stumbled of his prone form and joined him on the floor.

“Now what’s all this ruckus about?” A portly man asked from the doorway as he peered down the hall, the doctor, presumably. Harry paid him no mind and dove past his legs to get into the room before someone could recover from the pile up and catch him. A quick hop later and he was standing over Draco’s body. He twisted around to face his pursuers and hissed violently at them.

They paused, unwilling to approach the tiny dragon now that it was actively trying to escape.

“Lieutenant Michaels, what is the meaning of this?” The doctor demanded as he pulled himself off the floor. Harry had knocked into him on his way through the door, upsetting his balance and sending the man to the floor in and indignant heap.

“That’s something I would quite like to know as well, Lieutenant.” A voice from the back of the crowd asked.

Some shuffling occurred as people turned to face the speaker or attempted to slid away from the confrontation.

“Captain Peters,” The lieutenant’s voice answered. “The dragon egg has hatched, and while Mister Thomson and I were standing by there have been a few… complications, sir.”

“Complications, Lieutenant?”

“The hatchling refused to be harnessed sir, and he asked after the other man we pulled out of the water. When we attempted to persuade the beast to cooperate he threatened myself and the crew and escaped. He managed to find the doctor’s cabin and now he refuses to come out.”             “Let me see.” The men outside the shuffled again and the captain appeared in the doorway. He was the best dressed of anyone Harry had seen so far, wearing a blue coat with gold epaulettes on the shoulder. Harry growled at the man when he stepped closer. The captain snorted derisively.

“Leave him be.” He ordered. “If the beast won’t take a captain then that’s a problem for the Corps, we’ll drop them off in Funchal and let someone else deal with it.” The captain turned to address Harry. “And the next time you threaten one of my crew, I’ll have you shot. _Both_ of you.”

Harry just glared.

* * *

 

Several hours later Harry was starting to think that it would be worth taking a bullet just so he could shut this idiot doctor up. The man hadn’t stopped prattling on since the rest of the ship’s crew had left. On one hand, Harry had learned a lot about the world they had found themselves in.

And he was certain that they truly were in another world, as well and another time. One of the things that Harry had learned about Draco was that he held a deep fascination with history, and not just wizarding history, but muggle as well. As a result of their friendship Harry had been exposed to a great deal of it as well, enough that he could recognize that some of the people and events that the doctor was talking about had happened during the Napoleonic Wars. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, almost two hundred years in the past. And while Harry wasn’t as interested in history as Draco was, he was pretty sure he would have remembered if there were _dragons_ involved. Especially talking dragons that made up an air force alongside muggles.             Which all brought Harry to the conclusion that he and Draco had gone back in time and _sideways_ into another dimension at the same time. All of this information was important, along with the various tidbits about how dragons interacted with humans in this time, and Harry’s presumed fate should he prove unwilling to go into harness. The thought of being confined ‘breeding grounds’ for the rest of his life made him shudder.

Unfortunately, the doctor didn’t stop with the useful information, he prattled on about the most inane and useless things. Harry had been ready to bite him after the first hour, and things had come to a bit of a head when the ‘doctor’ decided he should attempt to bleed Draco to cure him. Needless to say, Harry had put a stop to that idea quickly enough and the doctor had a few new bruises for his trouble.

“… and that’s how my cousin came to be married to my _other_ cousin. Though not on the same side of course, god heavens, no. There was a bit of a scandal where someone from the next town over heard about it, but that was cleared up fairly quickly. It didn’t help that our village had a reputation for our cabinetry so _both_ families had the name Carpenter, but everything worked out in the end…” Harry placed his paws over his ears and tried to drown out the man’s rambling.

A bell rang out somewhere else on the ship, presumably announcing some event. Harry didn’t know what, and he didn’t particularly care, either. He was just grateful that the doctor stopped talking because of it.

“Ah, that’s the dinner bell, there.” The man rose from his chair and shuffled through some drawers until he found a ring of keys. “I’ll just be going then. I’ll have to lock you in, of course, you’ve caused enough chaos already today. We can’t have a dragon just wandering around the ship unaccompanied, can we?” He didn’t wait for an answer, leaving Harry alone in the room with Draco’s sleeping body and locking the door behind him.

Harry listened to his footsteps walking away from the door, paying attention to the noises from the other cabins around theirs, once he was sure that there was no one around he uncurled himself from his spot next to Draco and poked his friend with his tail.

“Okay, there’s no one else around, stop faking already.”

Pale eyelids snapped open and Draco sat up from the cot. Harry wasn’t sure exactly when Draco had regained consciousness, but he had noticed by the time the captain had left. Years of war and life on the run had taught both of them not to move before they knew what was going on, obviously Draco had heard enough about the situation that he had decided to ‘play dead’ until they were alone. Harry was just glad that he wouldn’t have repeat all of the information that he had learned from the chatty doctor. And that he wasn’t the only one who had suffered from his incessant babbling.

“Wow, Scar-head, you really are a dragon.” Draco said.

“Shut up, Ferret-face, we have bigger problems.” Both of them paused, reflecting on the fact that one of them had been turned into a dragon and it _wasn’t_ their biggest problem. And on the fact that this wasn’t even a particularly bad set of problems compared to their last couple of years. At least now no one was actively trying to kill them, though Harry had his reservations about the doctor. “You heard everything he said about the war and this ‘Aerial Corps’?”

“Yeah. What are we going to do?”

“I thought you were the one with all of the plans? Something about me not using enough of my brain to actually thing of any?” Harry received a glare for his comment. “I don’t know,” he sighed, “at this point it looks like we’re probably going to have to join the Corps. Unless you think that we can escape somewhere? Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to be sent off to the breeding grounds.” Draco shook his head.

“Not like this, without any resources and no magic.” Draco said. “I lost my wand, you’re a dragon, and even if neither of those things were true… I don’t think there’s magic in this world. Not any kind that we can use.”

Harry nodded. “I know what you mean, the air feels different here, like there’s something missing. I was hoping that it was just because I was a dragon, but if you feel it too then you’re probably right.”

“Dammit!” Draco swore. “We get sent into another universe _and_ back in time, and we still seem to end up in the middle of a war.”

“Well, look at it this way,” Harry said. “at least this time there’s no genocidal madman with daddy issues after our hides. I mean, we could have ended up in some version of World War II and had to deal with Hitler, Grindiwald, _and_ a baby Voldemort.” Draco tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment of Harry’s point.

“All right, so how are we going to do this?” Draco asked. “People are going to ask questions about where we came from.”

“We can just say that you have amnesia, I think that medicine at this point isn’t developed enough that anyone would really be suspicious. They already know our names because I told them, but apparently dragons hear stuff while they’re in the shell, so we can just pretend that’s why I know it and that you don’t remember anything.”

“You’re not even going to attempt to work out an actual story?” Draco asked.

“Nope.” Harry answered. “We don’t really know enough about this world to create a credible one. At least your childhood and obsession with history will let you fit in here. Isn’t that how memory loss works sometimes, you forget details, but still remember behaviors and habits?”

“Sometimes, though it’s nothing as simple as that.” Draco agreed. “I suppose it would be a bit foolish to make up a story that might not even be possible in this world.”

“Right, so I suppose the next thing we should do is have you put that damn harness on me.” He nodded toward the corner of the room, where the object in question had been left by the disgruntled Lieutenant Michaels. “That way when the doctor comes back we can say that I talked you into being my captain, and there’s nothing they can do about it. From what the man’s said that’s how these things usually go.”

Draco agreed and hastened to retrieve the harness from it’s corner. “Are you okay?” Harry asked, he could see a slight stiffness in the way Draco was moving, but that could be from any of a million things, they had gotten used to ignoring injuries during the war so it was difficult to judge the severity of his partner’s injuries.

“Just stiff,” Draco answered as he walked back to the cot, “I’ll be fine once I’ve moved around some more.” Harry nodded, and the two of them turned their attention to figuring out how the contraption was supposed to fit over Harry’s Draconic body. It took some time to puzzle out the confusing straps, and they ended up severing several of them that simply wouldn’t work and retying them in other places. It was evident that the harness had been made by someone who had never seen a dragon up close before and had only a rough estimate of what the harness was supposed to look like. 

“So,” Draco stepped back from the cot where Harry was standing and examined his partner. “a dragon, huh? Only you, Potter.”

“Oi!” Harry cried indignantly, his wings flared out to the side in reaction. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that transformation into a magical creature should be impossible, even when you factor in dimension travel and the secrets in the Department of Mysteries. Actually, the fact that we ended up in a world that doesn’t have magic should have just made that even more impossible. And yet, here you are.”

“Draco,” Harry said as a thought that had been lurking at the back of his mind popped up again. “I don’t really think that I was _transformed_ per se. Think about it, dimension travel doesn’t happen because it’s incredibly complicated, and unless you have a focus there’s no way to direct where you end up. It also requires an enormous amount of power, usually obtained by blood sacrifice.” Draco’s eyes widened.

“Do you mean…?”

“Yes, I’m fairly certain I died. Again.” He frowned, that really wasn’t something he should be making a habit of. “My death powered the ritual that brought you here, the egg was probably the focus, and somewhere along the line I ended up as a dragon. I don’t think that I was transformed, so much as my soul simply joined together with the baby dragon who was already in the egg.

“My mind took control when we merged, I think because I had the greater part of all the memories and experiences and a stronger personality. But I also have instincts that I didn’t have before, and some vague memories from the time spent in the shell.

“Oh?” Draco asked. “Like what?”

“Like the imprinting thing that’s the doctor was talking about. I’m pretty sure that if I had let that boy give me a name and put this contraption on me, that I would have fixated on him like they were expecting me to. It probably wouldn’t be as strong as other dragons feel, but it would be there all the same. And now I have that same sort of bond with you. Being friends and partners beforehand cancels out a lot of the decrease in draconic instincts where that is concerned.” Harry tilted his head to the side and stared into space for a moment. “Also I’m fairly certain I know French now. And Turkish. Apparently dragons can learn languages through the egg.”

Draco sat down next to Harry, “You know what this means right?”

“That even if we could manage to return to our own world, without magic, a focus, or the runic circle, I’d never be able to regain my human body?” Harry asked. “I have given it some thought.”

“Well that’s good.” Draco answered. “I was worried that I would need to console a hysterical dragon at some point.”

“Oh, you probably will. It just hasn’t hit me yet.” Harry replied blithely, “I’m sure once we’ve got our situation stabilized a bit more, I’ll go ahead and have a breakdown.”

“…great.”

“On the other hand, I am pretty excited about being able to fly again, this time without a broom.” That was one of the things they had missed the most while on the run. There was no time for recreational flying, not to mention the risk of being seen. The few times they had been on brooms in the last couple of years had been as the fled from areas they couldn’t apperate out of or when they didn’t want to risk being tracked.

“There is that.” Draco allowed.

They sat in silence, contemplating what it meant for them to be stuck in another world, likely for the rest of their lives. They were alone here, but that wasn’t much of a change for them. Most of those they had cared about had either turned their backs on the two men, or been killed in the war. They hadn’t left much behind them. Truly the only reason they had continued fighting was because they knew that Voldemort would have followed them wherever they ran to.

Harry wasn’t that pleased to find himself catapulted into another war, but at least here they wouldn’t be alone in their fight. War between nations was a vastly different creature that a few scattered resistance fighters trying to overthrow an oppressive, terrorist government. Given the rarity of dragons, the Aerial Corps was probably one of the better branches of the military to find themselves thrown into. It would make them targets, to be sure, but they were used to that, and the danger would likely bring along certain privileges. They would have to be in pretty bad straights here to reach the same sort of conditions they had been living with daily in their old world.

“Your secretly very excited, aren’t you?” Harry broke the silence.

“… The possibility exists that I may hold some anticipation of seeing one of my favorite periods in history firsthand.” Harry snickered.

“Oh.” He turned his head toward the doorway, “I think I hear someone coming.”

“Is it the doctor again?” Draco asked. Harry listened to the footsteps approaching them. He wasn’t adept enough with his new senses to be able to tell apart the footstep s of someone he had barely met, but the constant stream of prattle coming their way was enough to identify at least on of the pairs of footsteps.

“Yes, there’s someone with him.” Draco groaned at the thought of having to listen to the man once more. “I just hope they brought food.” Harry added. He had hatched with a gnawingly empty stomach and hadn’t been fed anything since then. He may have gotten used to going without food during his childhood and again in the last few years, but there was a reason that most dragonets could be talked into harness with the promise of food.

The jingle of metal keys preceded the doctor as he unlocked the door. “Hello,” he said brightly as he entered. “We’ve brought back a little something for you to eat. Of course, young Thomson will have to put that harness on you before you can have it- oh” He noticed Draco was awake and sitting upright. “You’re awake then; I was wondering when you would wake up. Well I’ll just have to go back down and get something for you as well, good sir.” The doctor rummaged around in his desk again until he found the instrument he was looking for. He still had yet to truly look at Harry, too distracted by his patient to notice that Harry was already wearing the harness. “Well, go on, Thomson. What are you waiting for, boy? You shouldn’t keep a hungry dragon waiting. Go ahead and get that harness on him, why don’t you.”             “Er…” Thomson had noticed the fact that Harry was already in harness and had halted in the doorway, a bucket of meat and scraps hanging from one hand. He stared at Harry awkwardly, before glancing up at Draco and back.

“I really don’t think that’s necessary.” Harry said, hoping down from the cot and approaching the bucket of food. “Since I’m already wearing the harness see? So I can just go ahead and eat now.” Thomson didn’t move, he was frozen by shock at first, and by the time he got over that and his thought process moved on, Harry was already close enough that he was too afraid to make any sudden movements.

“But…” Thomson drew the bucket closer to him in an effort to keep it away from Harry. Then realized that the closer the food was, the closer Harry would come to him, and thrust the bloody container in Harry’s direction. “But I was supposed to harness you…”

“Well I didn’t want you.” Harry stated matter-of-factly and stuck his head in the bucket to start devouring the food. “I like Draco, so I asked him if he would be my captain instead.”

The meat in the bucket was raw, cold, and more than a little bit disgusting, but it was still relatively fresh and he was hungry enough that he didn’t care. He knew that sailing vessels in this time usually carried little in the way of livestock so he was happy enough to get fresh meat rather than dried or salted. Yet, at least. He may insist in future that all of his food be cooked first.

Harry made his way through the bucket in short time, paying no mind to the others in the room as he stuffed himself. He wasn’t exactly full when he was finished, he would have to eat again soon, but it was enough for now.

He pulled his head out of the bucket and licked as much of the blood from his face as possible, though it was a bit of a useless task. Looking around he could see that someone had gone to fetch the captain, as he was now standing in the room arguing with the doctor.

“Why exactly did you think that it would be a good idea to leave a valuable dragon alone with someone you know nothing about?” The captain asked.

“Well, how was I supposed to know that the man would wake up while I was gone? And then proceed to put a harness on the damn creature? I wouldn’t have believed that the beast would let him do it anyway. He seemed reluctant enough about Thomson.”             “Well of course I was.” Harry interrupted, while he wandered back over to the cot and jumped up to Draco. The blonde had been silent so far, looking from one speaker to the other while he waited for a good time to speak. “Thomson would have made a horrible captain. I’m not certain why anyone would want him to make the attempt, it obviously wasn’t _his_ idea.”

“No one else was willing to do it, were they?” Captain Peters asked. “As the lowest ranking man aboard he had the least to loose if he got himself attached to a dragon and dragged into the Corps.”

“Well, I like that.” Harry said, offended. “Why wouldn’t someone what to be captain of a dragon?”

“So are you saying that you would have taken one of the other sailors as a captain if we hadn’t put Thomson forth for it?”

“Of course not.” Harry told them. “I had already decided that Draco was going to be my captain, but I would have been a great deal less offended if you had presented someone who wasn’t obviously terrified of me.”

“And what do you have to say about this?” Peters demanded of Draco, who pretended to be bewildered.

“Look don’t ask me,” He said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I don’t know what’s going on here. All I know is that I woke up in this room with a dragon calling me ‘Draco’ and telling me that I was his captain so I should put that harness on him. I thought it best not to disagree with him.”

“Are you saying that you cannot remember anything from before then?” The doctor interrupted, curiously. “There was quite a large knot on your head when we fished you out of the water, and head injuries have been known to cause memory loss.”             “…Yes?” Draco said after a moment of thought. “I can’t seem to recall anything from before I woke up earlier.”

“Do you believe this man Doctor?” The captain asked, obviously he didn’t. He thought that the blonde man was faking memory loss to avoid questioning, which Draco was, but the captain had no proof of that.

“Well, it’s always a bit difficult to tell with head injuries.” The doctor said. “Tell me, sir, what is your name and what year where you born?”

“…Draco?” Harry’s partner said after pretending to think it over. “And I’m not sure?”

“I meant your full name.” Doc clarified. Draco shook his head and shrugged.

“I really haven’t the faintest idea,” He said. “I only assumed my name was Draco because that’s what the dragon has been calling me.”

“Harry.” Said dragon interrupted.

“I beg your pardon?” Draco feigned confusion.

“My name is Harry, and you’re Draco Malfoy.” Harry considered, “I really have no idea when you where born.” That was true in a way, since 1980 was still almost two hundred years in the future Harry was unsure what his date of birth would be. He wasn’t even sure what year they were in exactly, so he couldn’t simply count back 23 years either.

“And how did you come into possession of a dragon egg?” Peters demanded.

“I didn’t know I had one?” Draco looked around, as if trying to spot the object in question. “Oh, he meant you?” He asked Harry, who nodded. “Well, I really haven’t the foggiest.”

Captain Peters growled, “Enough, I don’t have time to deal with this. We’ll put the two of you off in Funchal and let the Admiralty deal with you. We should reach port my tomorrow morn, Doctor, I’ll leave you in charge of them until then. There’s little else you could do at this point to make the situation any more difficult.” And with that, the Captain turned around and stalked out of the cabin, leaving man and dragon at the mercy of the over talkative doctor.

“I suppose I had best bring something up from the galley, hadn’t I?” The man said. “I imagine you’re quite hungry aren’t you? Of course you are, we pulled you out of the water two days ago, and you haven’t had anything besides water and broth since then.”

Harry turned to the doctor hopefully. “Could you bring me something as well? I find myself still hungry, despite eating already. And perhaps this time someone might be bothered to actually cook it first?”


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this has been up on FF for a couple of weeks now and I'm just now updating it here... I feel no shame.

Draco leaned back against the railing, head turned to watch the approaching port. He kept half an eye on the milling sailors as they went about their duties to make sure that he remained out of their way. His legs had been drenched in the salt spray from where the ship cut through the ocean but he made no attempt to move from his place. In only two days it had been made very clear to him that the captain of this ship had no desire to interact with him, an attitude that had been passed on to the rest of the officers. There was a casual disregard for anyone who dealt with dragons, the men of the Corps were separate from regular society, and as Draco wasn’t officially a part of the military no one felt the need to even make an effort at courtesy.

On the whole, the only person who would talk to him was the ship’s doctor, an unappealing prospect at the best of times. So Draco and Harry had kept to themselves for the short time it had taken them to reach Funchal. Neither minded, they were used to spending large amounts of time with only each other for company, and it had given them the opportunity to fine tune their story so that it would hold up under more intense scrutiny.

Then, just a few hours ago, the captain had informed them that the were almost to Funchal and would soon be someone else’s problem. The two former wizards had made their way up on deck in the hopes of seeing something more interesting than their cabin walls or the endlessly boring sea. No one stopped them, ignoring them as a matter of course, though both were aware that there was always an officer within sight of them, firearm conspicuously present.

As they got closer to port, the sailors had set about doing what was necessary to bring the ship to dock safely, and Draco and Harry had retreated to the mostly empty prow. Harry was currently wrapped around Draco’s shoulders like a snake, his wings partially unfurled to block the spray from hitting them in the face.

In the two days since his hatching Harry had grown several feet in length and wingspan. Once he had taken the chance to unfurl his wings completely, Harry had found them to be overlong and difficult to manage without upsetting his balance. After Draco had laughed at him for falling flat on his face when a sudden gust had caught them, Harry had made sure to keep them closed most of the time.

“What do you think will happen now?” Harry questioned. Draco shrugged, almost dislodging Harry from his perch.

“Who knows? It all depends on what the Admiralty decide.” Harry hummed, he hadn’t actually been expecting any other answer, the two of them had already gone over the various reactions they might have to deal with as a result of their circumstances. The dragon looked over the approaching port, enjoying his much improved vision in this form. The prattling doctor had told them that the island they were headed for was a strategic point in the British defenses against the French navy, which explained the large number of ships that stopped of at the relatively small island.

Draco hissed as Harry’s head jerked up and startled talons dug into his shoulder. “What are you doing, you idiot lizard?”

“Draco, look.” Part of the dragon’s tail unwrapped itself and pointed toward the harbor. “There’s another dragon on one of those ships.”

“What, really?” Draco squinted in the direction Harry was indicating, but his eyes couldn’t focus that far away. “I can’t see anything.”

“Wait until we get closer then.” Harry said. “It’s quite interesting, he looks nothing like the dragons from our world. Granted, neither do I, but it looks like that might be the norm here, rather than the exception. He’s big, not quite as big as the Ironbelly or the Ridgeback but close to it.”

“For someone who ostensibly  _ doesn’t  _  work with dragons, you have an abnormal amount of experience with them.” Draco mused. “There was Norbert too, maybe it wasn’t such a surprise that you’re the one who got turned into a reptile.”

“Norberta.” 

“What?” Draco twisted his neck around to stare at his partner.

“Hagrid’s dragon,  _ her _ name was Norberta.” Harry corrected him.

“I don’t care if he named it Phil, it’s not like it’s important.” Draco rolled his eyes. Harry whapped the end of his tail against Draco’s head. “Ow!, Watch it, you about put my eye out with that bloody spike. What was that even for?”

“You shouldn’t talk about dragon’s like that, it should have been made clear by now that they’re far more important than previously expected.”

“What, because you’re one?” Draco scoffed.

“Exactly.”

“Potter, just because the dragon’s in this world are actually sentient, doesn’t make the one’s from our old one any more intelligent.”

“Still,” Harry said, “all dragons are important. Though not as much as me.” The small dragon curved his neck around to stare into Draco’s eyes, he was very close, their noses, just barely touching. “I’m more important, right?”

Draco shoved the scaled face farther from him, “What’s gotten into you, you great bloody newt?” 

“No one else is allowed to have you,” Harry insisted. “You’re my person now, no other dragon gets to have you.”

“What? Potter, are you collecting me?” Draco expressed his disbelief. “Is this a thing now? How much did that egg scramble your head?” 

Harry sniffed, “I’m a  _ dragon _ , Draco, you can’t very well expect me to still think the same way I did when I was human.” 

“So this is going to be a thing from now on?” Draco was not whining, Malfoys didn’t whine. He was just… Expressing his discontent with the situation. Harry had a tendency to collect people. Once you became one of his people he would stick with you through anything, as shown by the fact that he stayed by Weasley and his ilk for years before they finally betrayed him one final time. He was also a bit of a pack rat, he wasn’t one for luxury and didn’t seek it out, but once he had something, he rarely let it go. There was man entire closet full of boxes of Harry's old things in their apartment, random junk He no longer needed, but couldn’t bring himself to get rid of. 

And now he was an actually  _ dragon _ , a species known for their biological propensity to hoard. Draco could already see how much trouble this was going to be for him. How was this even his life? 

“Draco?” An insistent nudge against His nose reminded Draco of the reptile currently wrapped around himself. He sighed, “Yes, Harry?”

“I’m the most important dragon, right?” Harry demand. “You won’t try to. Leave me and find another egg?”

“Yes, Harry, you’re the most important dragon.” He reassured the lizard, “You've already been my partner for years now, just because you’ve gotten yourself turned into a reptile that isn’t going to change. I very much doubt that any of the dragon’s in this world could measure up to you, so there’s little point in worrying about being inadequate when compared to any other.”

“Oh, well, that’s good, then.” Harry relaxed and turned back to the approaching port. “I just had to make sure, you’re  _ my  _ captain, and I won’t let any other dragon try to steal you.”

Self-conscious  _ dragons _ . Who would have thought?

“Oh!” Harry exclaimed, “I think he’s noticed us.” He used the end of his tail to point toward the other dragon, who had raised his head upward on their long neck and was staring in their direction. They were closer now, and Draco could make out more details beyond ‘dragon, large, black.’ This dragon was much more sinuous that the ones Draco was used to, closer to a Chinese Fireball than any European dragon, though not quite the same either. Like Harry, this dragon had four clawed legs in addition to its wings, all the other dragons that Draco had seen had those two front limbs combined. A frill ringed the dragon’s neck close to it’s head, as opposed to the two straight horns that rose from Harry’s head. 

“HELLO!” The black dragon bellowed across the harbor to them. “MY NAME IS TEMERAIRE, WHO ARE YOU?” 

Harry and Draco exchanged a glance, Harry shrugged, or the closest draconic equivalent. “I don’t think I can yell that loud.”

“Please don’t try, I don’t think my eardrums would survive it.” Several of the small human Figures around the other dragon had fallen over when it bellowed, either from shock or burst eardrums.

Harry nodded, instead of trying to match the other dragon’s volume he flug one wing into the air in an imitation of a human wave. Unfortunately, this coincided with a sudden gust of wind, which caught the unwieldy limb and threw both Harry and Draco to the deck without any warning. Draco yelped as he impacted the wood with seventy pounds of flailing dragon on top of him. 

“Harry!” Draco tried to avoid the dragon’s claws and wings as he tried to bring himself back under control and reduce the amount that was exposed to the wind. “Bloody lizard, get off!” 

“I’m  _ trying _ .” Harry snapped back at him. A final wiggle and most of Harry’s weight thumped down on the deck next to Draco. They lay there for several seconds, catching their breaths, before Draco rolled over onto his side and fixed the sheepish with a glare. 

“Really?” He asked dryly. “ _ Really _ , how many times does this have to happen before you remember that you have bloody  _ sails  _ attached to your back.” 

“Oh shut up,” Harry wriggled one last time to free the rest of his body from where it was trapped under Draco, “I’d like to see you do any better. It’s not every day that you wake up in a completely different body than you’re used to.”

“Excuse me,” Draco hissed back, “Did you forget all the times-” Draco’s mouth snapped shut as he heard footsteps coming towards them. He rolled over to see the captain of the ship approaching them with an expression of amused distaste on his face. 

“Well,” he said. “No doubt you’ve noticed that we’ve reached port, and it looks like there’s already a dragon and their captain here,  we’ll be able to part ways as soon as we dock and you can be someone else's problem. I’m sure that the Corp will be delighted to accept such a, competent, pair as yourselves into their midst.” A pointed glance at where Draco was still laid out on the deck made certain that they knew exactly what he meant by that. Draco flushed red at the implied slight and scrambled up to his feet. 

“Indeed.” He coughed, “I must thank you for your hospitality during our journey here, Captain. You and your crew have been most gracious to Harry and I after our rescue.” He ignored the insult muttered by a passing sailor. “You and your men have comported yourselves exactly as one would expect from one officer of His Majesty’s forces, to a prospective officer of another. Such comradery and respect between the branches can only help the war effort as we support each other and our country.” Draco injected as much condescension into his smile as he could and have it remain innocent and cordial. It was a difficult expression, but he had years of training in his youth to fall back on.

Captain Morgan grimaced slightly, barely noticeable to the average layman, not that it escaped either wizard’s notice. He didn't converse more, turning away to attend to the matters of docking with the barest tip of his hat in acknowledgment. 

Draco waited several more moments for the captain and any other sailors to move out of earshot before he turned back to Harry and picked up where he had been interrupted by the captain. “Who was it that had to pretend to be a woman every time we went under cover? Polyjuice is a very  _ complete _ potion,  _ everything _ changes.”

“Er,” Harry hedged, he knew that  was a sore spot for the blond, but he was by far the better actor of the two. Even with the potion, Harry had a hard time acting like a convincing female, so Draco had to take that role when necessary.  “Well, at least you were still human. There were no extra limbs to coordinate.” His partner huffed, still miffed, but unable to refute the point.

“ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” Harry looked over the railing toward the other dragon once more, judging the distance between them, he decided that they were close enough that he could reply without risking damage to anyone’s eardrums.

“We’re good!” He called back. “And my name’s Harry!” Harry watched the black dragon turn his head to address the blond man standing. By his side. He continued in a quieter voice, but given that his earlier volume could be heard half a mile away, he was still audible to Harry’s senses.

“Is that a common name for dragon’s Lawrence? It sounds rather common to me.” 

“Oi!” Harry yelled, “That’s a bit much Coming from someone who was named after a _boat_!” The other dragon’s head shot up at that comment and he  glared at Harry.

“Well, that's not very nice was it?” Temeraire snapped.  “It’s not like I made fun of your name. It can hardly be your fault that your captain named you something so common. And I like my name, Lawrence gave it to me. He said it was the name of a very impressive ship that helped win the battle of Trafalgar.”

“A  _ boat _ .” Harry repeated. “It’s an inanimate object that has no responsibility for its own actions. Anything it does is just a result of the captain and its crew.  _ I  _ was named after kings.” Instead of replying the dragon turned back to his blond companion.

“Lawrence, you didn’t named me Temeraire because you thought I was just a stupid ship, did. you?” They couldn’t hear the man’s reply, but they could see him shaking his head in denile, and whatever he said seemed to reassure Temeraire. 

Draco stared straight ahead as the black dragon returned to trading insults with a cheerful Harry. He couldn’t help but be reminded of t but be reminded of the way he and Harry had acted during their school years. Slowly, one of his hands came up to cover his face. He could already see where this was going. 

_ I’ve been replaced by a flying lizard. _


End file.
